The Student's Dilemma
by Thera Lance
Summary: In the aftermath of an ominous Youtube video showing a battle between angels and demons, a group of high schoolers find themselves dealing with a slew of supernatural consequences.
1. The Video That Destroyed My Life

The moon presses down upon the world as the vibrant red of the aurora borealis threads through the fabric of the night sky. Moonlight should glow white, but tonight a sickly green tinge infects its surface, staining the pale faces of the pedestrians as they clump together in clusters of fear.

The cellphone in Yoshiya's hand vibrates as the terror trembles through his body. Instead of a small circle suspended in the sky, the full moon looms over an entire block of Shinjuku, its edge barely visible in Yoshiya's peripheral.

"I'm, I'm…" He needs to say something—anything to explain this awful scene that his camera captures. But the words wither and die as the red lights near the edges of the sky continue to thread themselves around the enlarged moon.

Throughout the streets surrounding Yoshiya, people cry and moan in a morass of fear that threatens to engulf him. Yet, somehow, some coherency of thought collects within his head and he manages to extract a few words despite the mind-numbing terror oozing through his body.

"I don't know what's going on." Yoshiya was walking; he doesn't remember where, not with the moon bearing down on him now. Yet, he does remember, with isolated clarity, the moment that the streets had begun to glow brighter than what had been cast by the city lights. He remembers looking up, watching as the black sky peeled open and witnessing the moment those red lights first slithered into existence around a growing moon engorged with such green luminescence that the faint stars had vanished under the brightness of its light.

Words fail Yoshiya once again. Even thoughts barely stutter into existence for what can be said when the moon devours the night?

Hysteria bubbles up from within him. Once he had gotten a better grasp of the actual language, he would have made a decent English major, thinking up metaphors like that.

Would have…Weakness cuts away at Yoshiya's legs and his knees almost fold.

He's going to die. The moon is falling towards the Earth and he's going to die. Why is he sitting here filming this, wasting time when he should be calling his mom or Kaori, someone-

A roar rips through Yoshiya, stripping away the worst of his terror and leaving him staggering from a deep sense of loss. The crowd erupts around him in yelps and yells. A woman stumbles into him, only to push away while shaking her head in confusion. It doesn't make sense, the presence of the roar engulfs him, yet he can still hear the rising shrieks as people around him begin to point and back away from something to his right.

Gripping his cellphone tighter in apprehension, Yoshiya turns to look and stares at the sight of a tornado whirling above the tallest building within the district. It glows red, a black coagulated red that scabs over every coherent thought in the boy's head.

As a hollowness spreads within Yoshiya, a new sound crawls out from the pulsating center of the glowing tornado. Drowning out the clamor of the streets, a second roar awakens, tearing through Yoshiya's ears and down the streets on the back of a harsh wind. Despite the overbearing clamor, the initial roar that had stripped away his fear continues to resonate within him, scraping away any form of emotion and leaving nothing but numbness in its place.

The wind comes back, yanking on Yoshiya's clothes and throwing loose debris into the air. Slips of paper whip past Yoshiya towards the twisting black behemoth that tears into the sky as if trying to claw at the moon itself.

Holding up his trembling cellphone, Yoshiya draws the device in front of him. The moon and the tornado are swallowed by the camera's eye, shrinking down to fit inside of the phone's screen. Funnily, as long as he beholds the hideous column through the frame of his phone's cruddy camera, it's like an evil spirit trapped in a box. Contained as it is, it won't slip off the building's edge and come howling down into the streets below.

Just as suddenly as it had appeared, the tornado vanishes from the confines of the screen. Yoshiya freezes as once again the moon's feverish glow rules the skies unfettered. Within the deep sense of loss that the roar had carved into Yoshiya's chest, sparks of fear sputter in and out of existence as he gasps from the wavering emotion. The wheezy breaths of those around him barely reach Yoshiya's ears while he grips the shirt fabric over his chest as if trying to squeeze out the numbness that has curled around his heart. He stares at the empty space left by the tornado as if at any moment it will spin back into existence.

A thin streak of orange light shoots off of the top of the building, hitting another skyscraper a block away. For the most vanishingly small of moments, a perfect circle is visible where the light explodes upon impact, carving the side of the skyscraper open. But then, smoke swallows the gaping hole as the building collapses in on itself and casts a rain of rubble down onto the streets below.

Previously quiet whimpers rise into screams. People who had been hunched over gasping now scramble past Yoshiya. As if he is a rock at the bottom of the raging river, they part around him in desperate dashes to avoid death while he stands completely still. Eyes fixed upwards, he watches as the next orange flash is followed by a set of purple explosions that encircle the sky above the city. With his camera still raised, shock freezes him solid.

He barely even notices when the moon above him starts to shrink; not when one of those orange flashes slices off the top corner of the Metropolitan Government building, sending tons of rubble cascading into the streets before him.

A shadow descends over him, blocking out the remaining green glow and finally drawing his attention upward. The top floors of an office building meet his gaze as they fall directly on top of him.

Fear bursts back into his chest, scrambling out in a scream as his knees finally fold. The impact of his knees against the pavement jars his entire body just as the building rushes towards him…but stops only a few meters above him.

Snot and tears run down his face, and his chest heaves as he gulps in air. His arm still holds the camera upwards – more from being locked in that direction than any conscious effort on his part –and it records the new sky made of metal and concrete. A small trickle of dust trails from the hovering building and brushes his shoulder. The gentle touch centers all of Yoshiya's scattered thoughts into a realization. The camera pointing up at the ceiling of concrete turns towards his face. The boy doesn't even wipe the snot from his nose as he sobs.

"Mom, Dad, I'm not coming home, I'm sorry, I'm not," His tears choke him. "Kaori, please be okay, I'm sorry, please."

The video cuts, leaving the screen in total darkness. Kaori sits on her bed, legs tucked under her and her phone held loosely by numb fingers. Once the video exits full-screen mode, white light strikes the girl's face, reflecting brightly off of her eyes as she stares unblinkingly. Below the video, the black lettering of 5,014 views trickle into her awareness, as does the nonsensical string of symbols that make up the poster's username.

She had just been surfing YouTube because she couldn't sleep. She hadn't, she hadn't meant to see that…it had just randomly appeared in her feed.

As her thoughts stutter and stall, she taps on the username, expecting something, anything besides the created date of the account to state two hours ago. The uploaded date for the video reflects the same horrible digits.

Her fingers press and slip against the screen, searching for a reason to dispel the rising unease, because that couldn't have been real, right? It certainly looked like the same streets that she herself had walked down repeatedly throughout her life but that didn't happen. She would have been able to see something like that from the windows of her house. There would have been something like-

Sirens blaring in the middle of the night, startling her awake and leaving her sitting up in bed with a throbbing heart until she sought the comfort of the mind-numbing videos of the internet.

Kaori scampers off of her bed, bare feet hitting the floor as she slides her contact lists onto the cellphone screen. She paces the length of the room, glancing out of the window that faces in the wrong direction to actually see anything important as the phone rings in her ear.

No one answers her call except for the voicemail of her friend Yoshiya Kohmaru, talking into her ear with a far calmer, happier voice than those last desperate words that had called out to her on that small video screen.


	2. Into the Dark City

_Where did everyone go? That should be the question on her mind, but it isn't. Because even if most of the city disappeared, there are only a few people who really matter._

* * *

Twice, Kaori listens to Yoshiya's voicemail before she moves.

Without bothering to change out of her pajamas, she slips past the bedroom of her sleeping, snoring father and down the hall of their small apartment. After jamming on a pair of sneakers, she grips the doorknob and doesn't even hesitate to force the door open. Her skin prickles when a wall of cold rushes though the entryway and slips right past her overgrown shirt and into her skin.

Despite the days being a little on the warm side, it isn't summer yet. Kaori was expecting a spring night chill to greet her, but this…This cold is too harsh, too close to the piercing bite of winter. Kaori shivers, less from the cold than from the unnaturalness of it, before rushing down the stairwell of her apartment.

Fear burns through her as she makes her way through the smaller streets, causing the air's bite to evaporate from her awareness. Yoshiya couldn't have made a fake video that good, not with the barely up-to-date cellphone that he has. But what Kaori saw, that wasn't possible. She's looking up right now and the moon looks perfectly small and white as it stares back at her from its corner in the sky.

It continues to watch her as she makes her way through the quiet residential streets and towards the Koshu-Kaido road leading into the Shinjuku district. It shouldn't be her only companion tonight; the four-lane roads should be filled with late night workers driving home and the younger partygoers who have temporarily shrugged off their daily responsibilities.

Instead, Kaori runs through empty streets. The high-rises loom over her as the black sky above presses down upon the silent city.

Something must have happened. There's no way Kaori should be able to go blocks and blocks without seeing anyone but her reflection in the dark windows. But the place that she's running to, the building where that tornado had sprung from…that was the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. If that video had really happened, there would have been more than pandemonium in the streets. The National Defense Force itself would have surely rushed to the scene with military helicopters crawling through the skies and soldiers running through the streets.

Kaori's ears prickle as the absence of blades whirring through the air crawls over her spine. There aren't even any sirens piercing the night, only the sound of her shoes hitting the pavement over and over again.

At every empty crosswalk, the streets stretch out around her, forcing her to keep her eyes ahead lest the barren sidewalks draw her to a stop. And she should stop. She shouldn't be here. Kaori should be at home and under her bedroom covers, waiting for tomorrow when there would be nothing in the sky except for the regular old sun with a few clouds scattered by the breeze.

Each gasp rattles in her throat. The knuckles of her hands glow white with a desperate grip. She needs to go home, turn right back around the way she came. It would be safe and smart but…what if Yoshiya isn't there in the morning? What if it's just his voicemail tomorrow and an empty desk across the classroom from her own?

_What if he's gone?_

"Yoshiya…" The words thin under the towering skyscrapers.

"Yoshiya," Kaori says louder, just enough for herself to hear. She continues to rush forward, picking up the pace as she repeats her friend's name just a little louder each time she speaks.

Her legs scream at her as she drags oxygen into her burning lungs, but she doesn't stop. Regardless of how blurry her vision grows or how loud her heart pounds in her ears, Kaori keeps running, calling out her friend's name. If she goes fast enough, maybe she could search the whole city tonight.

The red lights glaring down at her are meaningless as she zips under them. There aren't any cars to run her over anyway, so why should she waste her time slowing down.

Kaori doesn't see the vehicle, not until the tires' screech breaks through her ears. Red and blue lights flutter across her face as she stumbles back too late to save herself. The driver reacts fast enough though, the bumper stopping inches from her bare knees as they shake.

Seconds after the car stops, her hands reach out as if she could have caught it before it hit her.

"Ma'am?!" One of the officers is already out of the police car before Kaori's managed to drag her gaze away from the headlights. He hovers several feet away, sweat glistening off his face as he inches towards her.

"Ma'am, are you all right?" He looks old enough to be her dad as he stares at her with open concern.

There's somebody else here and that's good, right? Maybe they know something, anything about why the streets are so empty.

"Young lady, my name is Officer Tanaka. I need you to tell me what you're doing out here in the middle of the night." His tone changes, gaining a touch of parental authority under the concern that plagues his eyes.

Buried, childish instinct emerges past the shock and forces an admission out of Kaori. "I'm looking for my friend, Yoshiya." The next words stretch thin. "I've been trying to call him, but he won't answer."

The cop tries not to frown, but the corners of his mouth weigh down as he glances back at the window shield hiding his partner.

Kaori waits for him to say something, because what could she say next? "I saw him on this impossible video" sounds so stupid.

"Okay, well here's what we're going to do. We're going to take you to the station, and you can give us his description and name. And where you think he last was, and we'll look for him for you."

Kaori just stares as the officer finishes. The skin under his eyes is dark from exhaustion.

"What happened out here?" she asks.

The video can't be real because he wouldn't be acting this calm. He would be shoving her in the car, telling her to get out and away because a part of the city's in ruins and who knows how far it will spread. That's not how he acts, though. Instead, the look of concern fades in his eyes and a dull sheen grows over his gaze.

"Well, nothing scary happened, that's for sure." He nods like he's about to nod right off to sleep.

Apprehension prickles along Kaori's skin.

"There's been a few people passed out here and there, but nothing worth panicking over." The man's gaze wanders past Kaori's shoulder and focuses on nothing at all.

She refuses to take her eyes off of him.

"Hey." The man's gaze lands on her again at his own muted exclamation. "We've been dropping people off at the hospital. Maybe that's where your friend is."

Nope, no. Kaori isn't doing this, whatever this is. There's something wrong here, and it's not just the abandoned streets.

_There's something wrong with these people._

Kaori steps back and the officer frowns.

"Hey, where you going? You need to find your friend."

Kaori drags up some remnant of a smile. "Oh, that's okay. I just remembered. He told me yesterday to meet up by the thing, so I'm fine." And that was terrible. She honestly would have had a better head start by not saying anything and running. Now, he knows she's full of crap.

The officer stares at her, an ember of emotion flickering under the dullness.

"Are you sure?" He asks without lurching for her or showing any signs of movement at all.

"Yep, totally sure. Besides, there's nothing worth panicking about, right?" Kaori's voice cracks at the end of her question and her heart nearly stops. But the officer only nods.

"I guess…" His frown deepens.

Kaori backs away, nearly tripping over her own feet. "Thanks for your help Mr. Policeman." Somehow, her voice carries enough gratitude to sound sincere. She barely manages to turn her back on them, keeping her light jog slow and steady just long enough to get into the mouth of an alleyway. The moment she's out of their sight, she takes off sprinting, her feet slamming against the ground as she runs into the darkness.

* * *

Her hands clench her knees as her long hair falls over the sides of her face, like a curtain blocking out the world around her from sight. Kaori was going to run farther, to the point that it would have been exhaustion that forced her to stop. But she had reached her destination. Without even realizing it, she had skidded to a stop in front of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.

It had towered over her, whole and unmarked. The edge that had been lopped off in Yoshiya's video fitted back seamlessly into its rightful place as the rest of the skyscrapers encircled it. Those buildings had all been torn apart within the confines of her cellphone's screen; yet now, every single one rises up over her, undamaged and untouched.

She couldn't handle it, this impossibility. But even after hunching over so that her hair blotted out her vision, the scene around her won't leave her mind's eye. She tries to focus on the ground instead, but…

There's a cellphone by her foot with a little plastic kitty attached to its keychain. She stares at it as its little black beady eyes look up at her. It isn't hers, and neither is the purse that she tripped over a few yards back. There's also a canvas bag that she hasn't looked at since she bent down to hide everything from her eyes. A few tourist trinkets spill out as it lays deflated on its side. Judging by the paintings sprawled across its surface, it had to have come from the Opera House's gift shop she ran by only minutes ago.

There aren't too many items, just one or two abandoned things every couple yards. But it's enough. Enough to show that other people must have thought that video was real too, even if all the buildings around her show no sign of ever being destroyed.

The cold finally catches up to Kaori again; and she shivers from that, not from the fear crawling through her body. She pants, the exertion of having run here finally burning through her lungs.

The sound of her breathing reaches through the air around her. There aren't any other noises, no cars to swallow it up with their rumbles nor chatter of the late-night crowd to trample over it as they head home at this ungodly hour. Just her alone, in the exact same spot her friend had stood.

The enormity of it presses down upon her hunched shoulders. Something had happened here. Those sirens that had jolted her awake, the barren streets, her friend's video reaching out for her in the dark. They're real, it isn't an ill-thought prank or even a dream because she's biting her lip so hard that the pain would have ripped her awake. This is real and happening, the logic and rules of reality have been undone not on a screen to an anime Kaori's just watched, but to herself and now it's swallowed up her friend just like everyone else who was there beside him—

A shuffling sound crawls over Kaori's ears. With the curtain of hair blocking her sight, she can't see whatever it is that is making that slow noise. But she knows, she just knows, that even if it sounds far away that only idiots from horror films believe something like that before they look up and get snatched away.

So she doesn't look up. She scampers back, hands half-raised and legs tense and ready to run. Bracing, she tilts her head up and sees nothing. The shuffling noise that her heartbeat nearly drowns out isn't in front of her.

Kaori whirls, knowing that there has to be something right behind her, but it isn't right there either. Several yards away, at the intersection she had passed earlier, a figure has emerged from the gloom of the perpendicular street. Its feet drag against the pavement of the road it staggers upon.

Weird videos, brain dead cops, Kaori wouldn't be surprised if that list finished up with zombies. She keeps her distance. It hasn't seen her yet, not by the way it continues to trek forward and away from her. That's good, really it is, gives her time to see what she might be up against. It looks human, a man or a boy judging from the profile of its physique. It's not moving right at all, feet dragging against the ground like its legs are damaged on the inside…Oh, it stopped.

Kaori's breath catches in her throat. It turns, its face too dark to see anything except for the glasses that gleam in the city lights.

Her legs tremble and the thing drags one foot forward. Her heart throbs and it slowly shuffles closer until several yards become only a few. She doesn't wait for that distance to dwindle down; breaking out of her shock, Kaori side-steps until she slides around the fender of one of the few abandoned cars.

Somehow, she holds her ground as it stumbles closer. She needs to know now just how smart these things are, if they'll try to climb over cars or lurch around them. There's only one, so she should be fine as long as she keeps her eyes right on its face that finally is close enough for her to see…

Time doesn't stretch, the thing is already shuffling so slowly that her mind can't make anything move any slower. Kaori herself doesn't move, doesn't even think of it when it finally stops parallel with the car. Slowly, the entity raises its arm, but not to reach towards her. At the end of an outstretched arm, a small cellphone points towards the Metropolitan Government Building. The hand that holds it is so pale that it glows against the phone's dark screen.

"Yoshiya…" Kaori finally chokes out. The minutes slip by and he just stands there, phone aimed at the sky that looms starless and dark over them.

He doesn't respond when his name slips out of her again, doesn't do anything other than stand there with his arm trembling from the strain. Kaori inches forward, hands curled against her chest as she moves past the car and towards her childhood best friend.

No part of her recalls that she would never approach anyone else who stood there barely seeming human.

"Yoshiya." Her voice barely whispers past her own ears as she comes close enough to reach for him. His eyes are glazed behind his reflective glasses, even when she finally repeats his name loud enough to draw his attention.

Slowly, his gaze roams from the phone to Kaori's face. The rest of his body turns as well just as the hand holding the phone drops to his side. Two trickles of blood flow from his nose and drip past his chin. Kaori shivers as he just looks through her.

She's made a mistake. That realization burns through her as he finally moves forward. She shouldn't have come this close. She really shouldn't have come close enough for him to grab her.

"Kaori?"

He speaks, each syllable catching on the other, making her name near unintelligible. But he said her name. He actually said her name.

"Hey Yoshiya… what happened?" Kaori reaches out, her words as soft as the tentative touch of her hands upon his shoulders. His glazed eyes draw down to her collar bone before he drags his gaze back up to the sky. His phone clatters against the asphalt as he raises his now empty hand and points to the empty sky.

"It was right there." The blood continues to trickle, curling around the corner of his mouth as he speaks.

"The moon was right there, but now it's gone."


End file.
